BPO Boss not to be the Biggest Loser
By Juan Dela Cruz

Perfecto Arturo Dillera, a popular senior call center manager in the Philippines missed the chance of his lifetime to become a huge celebrity after his elimination from the popular TV contest, Asia’s Biggest Loser. After a very successful run in North America, the producers of The Biggest Loser contest had decided to bring this show to Asia.

The 30 audition finalists including PA Dillera had their last chance to impress the judges and hopefully be included in the last 16. The official roster of 16 contestants has just been revealed and unfortunately the jolly, every smiling call center manager was not chosen to be on the show.

PA, as he is popularly called, has been managing people in the call center industry for the past 10 years. He worked for several big name call center companies like Sykes, NCO, TELUS and most recently Harte Hanks. Having worked for all of these companies, he had a pretty decent following to support him during this contest. Entering this contest of hefty people, he weighed in at a massive 158kgs. While he was actually overweight since childhood, in his TBLA website profile, he attributes his worsening weight problem to the unhealthy lifestyle he was forced to live while working in the call center industry. The night shift schedule, stress and bad food choices helped him balloon up to almost 350lbs.

One of my sources, who used to work for him at Sykes BPO, informed me about the likable Perfecto’s exploits on this show last week before the official contestants were revealed on the first episode of the show. He along with the rest of PA’s co-employee fans who watched the first episode, were really disappointed to have not seen him in the final 16. This was a sorry ending for this likable senior call center manager who even posted a funny YouTube video entry for this contest. Among the 16 who bested PA were homemaker Rashmi Jaiswal of India and Veronica Llamas of the Philippines who is incidentally also a call center employee working as a language trainer. She now appears in this weight loss TV show which started December 1 and airs weekly in the Hallmark cable channel for the next 14 weeks. Should she win the top prize of $100,000, I’m pretty sure many more “unhealthy” people in the call center industry from both India and the Philippines will be joining this contest next season.

(Email me news and tips at 1delacruise at gmail dot com)